The Laundry Bitch

Laundry is something that I find kind of personal. I am not a fan of others touching my laundry unless its my parents. They did my laundry the first 18 years of my life and besides myself, are the only ones that have handled and cleaned my dirty clothes. I did my first load of laundry as a freshman in college in the dorm laundry room. I was a natural. I had laundry rooms in my buildings freshman and sophomore years and junior and senior years I was lucky enough to get apartments with laundry in the unit. Talk about being spoiled. I thought I would never have to go back to using an all building laundry room again. Think again. In NYC, unless you are wealthy, it is VERY difficult, if not impossible, to find an apartment with laundry in your unit. And if you do, never, ever move. Ever.

As previously mentioned, I have the luxury of living in an apartment building with its own laundry room. In the 3 buildings I have lived in in NYC, I have always had laundry facilities in the building and have never had the "pleasure" of going to a laundromat. With having a shared laundry room, there are usually many unspoken rules that one must follow. They are basically general courtesies to be followed; the most common being that you give someone a five minute grace period to remove their stuff from the washer or the dryer before you remove it to a CLEAN area so you can put yours in. Or at least one would think so. This brings me to one of the angriest moments of my life. Let me share...

I am going to start with some background information. The washers in my building run for 38 minutes and the dryers for 45 minutes. Knowing this, if you start your wash when someone starts their dry, you know you are going to have to wait. No big deal. You can even see the time on the machine. So there is no rush to get down to your wash after 38 minutes if the other person's clothes are in the dryer. Am I right? Of course I am. So this brings me to the story.  I was doing my laundry one day and placed my clothes in the wash the same time one of my neighbors put hers in the dryer. I was going to come back down in 45 minutes to put my stuff in the dryer. No need to go earlier because, like I said before, the dryer was being occupied. So 45 minutes later, I came down and all my clean, wet clothes were sitting on top of the detergent spotted washer and some bitch put her laundry in the washing machine. Was she serious? The time on her machine was at 31 minutes meaning she literally yanked my stuff out at the 38 minute mark waiting probably all of 15 seconds. What was the rush? She knew I had to put my stuff in the dryer and she'd have to wait anyhow. I was furious. My now clean clothes were sitting on the not so clean washer and I had to rinse a bunch of them before finally putting them in the drier for the 45 minutes. But I wasn't done there. I looked at this person's washer timer and decided I was going to go downstairs to have a "conversation" with her about her lack of laundry room etiquette. I timed it perfectly with her wash and as she was leaving the room after realizing her laundry was going to have to wait in the washer because I still had time on my dryer, she was heading back upstairs. First of all, this bitch had headphones on. Who wears headphones in their own building? I have never seen this before. In a laundromat maybe. In your basement, its weird. I tapped her on the shoulder and she ignored me. I tapped her again and yelled "excuse me" to her. She turned around and took out one earpiece. I asked her if she took out my laundry and she said yes. Then I started to ask her (very nice and calm mind you...seriously), that if she was going to do that again, to make sure the area was clean. However, before I got out three words, she put her headphones back on, turned around and walked away. THAT FUCKING BITCH! Did she just blow me off? I literally wanted to yank the ponytail off her cunty little head. I am 100% serious. Who does she think she is? I stood there, shocked, with my fists clenched. I wanted to throw down. And I don't fight. Never have. But this really set me off. There was nothing more I could do. I wasn't going to yell and scream like a crazy person, so I had no other choice but to go back to my apartment and call my mother and vent. To her I could yell and scream like a crazy person about this stupid bitch. A few minutes later, I went down to grab my now dry laundry and headed back upstairs.

I wanted revenge.  But what could I do? I thought about going back downstairs and opening her dryers so her laundry would still be wet and she'd be out of time when she got back and have to do it again. I didn't do this because someone else was putting their laundry in the washer and I didn't want to screw them so that was out of the question. Hmmm...next time perhaps. Or I could put a red sock in her whites next time I see her doing laundry. Genius. Or I could just trip her on the stairs. Or close the door in her face. I am so juvenile. But I will not forget what she did. I have seen her a few times since "the incident" and every single time I want to jack her in the face, but I am a lady so I refrain. She will get hers one day. (But I really hope I am the one to do it or at least get to see it go down.)